Every so often we are reminded that not many housing markets across the U.S. are as robust as Orange County’s.

A new report from the Center for American Progress paints a stark contrast between the nation's top performing housing markets and the weakest ones.

The study found a decidedly uneven pattern in the improvement in "negative equity” – the financially painful situation where homeowners owe more on the mortgage than the house is worth. Nationwide, negative equity was sliced in half between the second quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2015: from 30 percent of all homes with mortgages to 15 percent.

Negative equity – also called an “underwater mortgage” – is both a real financial hurdle and a state of mind. Homeowners without equity are more likely to walk away from a home, since they have nothing left to lose. But they’re also more likely to stay put and ride out a housing downturn.

Neither of those scenarios is ideal for a housing market, or for the house hunter. Negative equity might create a distressed home for sale – or nothing at all.

The study – ranking counties by their level of negative equity as well as the four-year change in that level – showed that regions where the proportion of underwater mortgages is shrinking are worlds apart from the places where this real estate plague is still growing.

The best-performing counties – called "robust" – are dominated by large metropolitan areas including Orange County, 23 other California counties, and counties from 44 other states. All told, these counties are home to 134 million Americans.

The worst performers, the “sinking” markets, are mostly in small, rural communities. They are comprised of counties in 32 states, not including California, and have 10 million residents.

"Non-metropolitan and rural areas are less likely to be equipped with the resources that could ease the recovery," the center wrote. "Because of the sluggish economy and housing markets characterizing these counties, foreclosed homes are at risk of lying vacant and abandoned for a long time, with high costs to local communities."

The demographic and economic gulf between robust and sinking markets is wide. Look at this stark example:

• • In Orange County, a robust market, 7 percent of homes with mortgages are underwater this year vs. 22 percent four years earlier. The local job market enjoys its best hiring spree in 15 years.

• • In Onslow County, North Carolina, a sinking market that is perhaps best known as the home to the Camp Lejeune Marine base, negative equity has hit 46 percent of mortgage-financed homes in 2015, up sharply from 21 percent four years earlier. Onslow County unemployment rose from 5 percent at the start of 2015 to 5.7 percent in September, a level last seen in April 2014.

Next, ponder this gap in broader economic measurements.

The median household income in all robust markets was $50,696 in 2013 vs. $41,759 in sinking markets. Robust markets had 15 percent of the population living below the federal poverty line in 2013 compared to 19 percent in sinking markets.

Education can explain some of the income divide: 13 percent of robust market adults had less than a high school diploma vs. 16 percent in sinking markets.

Not surprisingly, that employment picture translated to housing strength.

Home prices in robust markets – 2013 median home value of $160,474 – rose 17 percent from 2011 to 2015. Sinking markets – median of $113,458 – had price gains of just 8 percent. Part of this divergence was demand, as the number of homeowners in robust markets grew 10 percent from 2000 to 2013, compared to 4.7 percent in sinking markets.

In some ways the center’s report simply reinforces the notion that one-size-fits-all rarely works in any real estate discussion.

"The housing market’s dynamic nature and strong ties to local economies must not be overlooked when designing and implementing policies that target the national housing and economic recoveries," the center wrote.

An area’s availability of well-paying jobs and its workforce’s education and skill sets are just as critical to local real estate as are housing supply, house hunters’ demands and what's next for mortgage rates.

The huge economic chasm between the robust and sinking markets revealed by this report should remind us how important overall economic fundamentals are to the health of any housing market.

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